The $Billions We’re Burying in Plain Sight

There's $67 billion in critical minerals sitting in your trash can right now. Old laptops, dead drills, that printer you keep meaning to throw out. The piles of waste outside old mines hold even more. By some estimates, between e-waste recycling and mine tailings, America already has nearly all the rare earth elements it needs, without digging a single new hole.

One New Hampshire startup, Phoenix Tailings, is already turning toxic mine waste into wind turbine magnets using a furnace as hot as lava. Every few years someone promises a clean fix to the critical minerals problem, and every few years we keep buying them from China. So is remining actually the answer? Or is it just another shiny promise headed for the dustbin?

Watch Why This Mars Battery Could Beat Lithium-Ion

• Why This Mars Battery Could Beat Lithium-Ion

Video Script and Citations:
https://undecided.tech/the-billions-were-burying-in-plain-sight/

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Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro
• 02:33 - Tailings
• 07:22 - Waste Water
• 09:53 - E-Trash
• 12:07 - Environmental Cost vs Benefit
• 13:18 - Economics